


Brand New Day

by LiteralTrashHeap_Sry



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Cassian the International Student!, F/M, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-27
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-09-27 05:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9973640
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiteralTrashHeap_Sry/pseuds/LiteralTrashHeap_Sry
Summary: Cassian Andor came to America for one thing: graduate school. Insert co-ed Jyn Erso to the mix and he's suddenly getting much more than he bargained for. Who knew a semester abroad could be so interesting?A collection of encounters// I just like making Jyn & Cassian happy.





	1. August

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not sure how many parts to this there are going to be but??????
> 
> The campus mentioned here is also pretty much just my campus so go dawgs.

He found himself staring over at her again.

Cassian had been standing at the bus stop, waiting to catch a bus to take from his on-campus apartment to his first class, English Composition with Professor Mothma, when he saw her standing a few feet away, seated on the bench under the stop’s sign. Her brunette hair was pulled back and a pair of Wayfarers covered her face, but he still knew it was the same girl.

On a campus this large, it was rare to run into the same people over and over again; out of all 35,000 plus students, he seemed to see her everywhere he went. In the halls of the student learning center, at the dining hall eating with her friends, hammocking by the turtle pond just behind the math building--everywhere. It had taken him a moment to notice her at first. He had only been in the country for three weeks; his first few days he had been too focused on noticing everything else about his host university. And then he had seen her for the first time.

It wasn’t anything special, she had just been sitting under a tree on North Campus, near one of the water fountains that populated the area. It was a surprisingly cold day for it being barely mid-August. But she had looked so calm reading her book, it had made him pause and almost be late to his class. Just like what was happening now.

And every moment after that, he had taken notice to her, like a beacon calling his attention to her. He didn’t even know her name.

She was on her phone this time, having a seemingly relaxed conversation with whomever it was on the other end of the line. A pair of torn up converse coated her feet and she was wearing an oversized shirt like most girls here did, but on her it didn’t look as ridiculous. He had been staring at her for so long, he almost didn’t notice when the Orbit Bus he had been waiting on pulled up to the stop. The students around him began to cram onto the bus and he lost sight of her in the crowd.

One thing he had discovered about American Uni was that the students here were seemingly friendly until it came to getting a seat on the bus--they also crowded the busses to unsafe proportions. He crammed onto the bus, scanning for an open seat. Just as he found one near the set of doors he had boarded on, another boy wearing those ridiculously short cargo shorts sat down in it. He had to fight back a frown as he moved further onto the bus. Just once this week he didn’t want to stand sandwiched in-between fifty other students he didn’t know well.

Then he spotted another open seat. Next to the brunette.

They made eye contact as he began to head towards it and she offered him a little smile, making his heart skip a beat for a moment. Just as soon as he was about to claim the seat as his own, another boy--this time wearing a ‘Reagan/Bush ‘84’ shirt, made way to take the seat from him. He was about to give up the hunt for a seat and resign himself to standing, again, when he heard a voice ring out.

“Sorry, Mate. This one is reserved for my friend right there.” And then she had pointed at him. 

He hadn’t entirely been sure what he expected her voice to sound like, but he definitely had not expected to hear it coated in a thick, posh english accent. The boy nodded and continued on to the back, where he easily found another seat. Cassian quickly took the one beside the mystery girl. He hadn’t even had the chance to thank her before her phone was back at her ear, resuming what he assumed was the same conversation she had been engaged with on the bus stop.

“Leia gjort rosenkål sidste nat og de var ulækkert.”

Reaching into his pocket, Cassian pulled his phone out, but he continually glanced up at her from the corner of his eye. She still had the sunglasses on and was staring out the window as she continued the conversation, in whatever language it was she was speaking. It sounded so foreign to his ears, he was barely used to hearing English everywhere, but her voice had a nice sound to it.

He sat beside her in silence for five stops, before they eventually reached the Park Hall stop--his stop. This was a fairly popular stop for students to get off at, so he waited a moment for the crowd to move out of the walkway. When he finally had the space to stand from his seat, he turned back slightly to see if she was still on the phone. When he looked up at her, he found her staring back at him--phone nowhere in sight.

“Gracias.”

She smiled back at him as he moved towards the doors. “You’re welcome.”

It wasn’t until five minutes later that he realized he had thanked her in spanish.

***

“How’s your calculus class going?”

She had to force down that groan that threatened to escape as soon as her father asked the question. Galen Erso, while a well-meaning man, never failed to asked the questions that she spent the most time avoiding. She had just spent ten minutes telling her father about the ins-and-outs of Saturdays during football season, hoping to make him forget that she had taken a test in said class the previous day.

Needless to say, she hadn’t been successful.

“Okay; my teacher is a bit hard to understand. She talks very quickly and never pauses to elaborate on her meanings.” Jyn paused, glancing around at the few students walking past the bench she was currently seated on. “It’s kind of like whenever you would try to explain something to me.”

She could hear her father chuckle on the other end of the line and she smiled. He called her everyday at the same time, no matter what. When she had decided to come to school across the country, he hadn’t exactly been pleased--but he and her mother understood. They had moved to the U.S. when she had been in junior high. Moving from London to Boston had been a very large adventure for her family, especially for her Father. He was very danish and barely understood english customs, let alone American ones. But when it came time for her to pick a university to attend, she wanted to go somewhere warm--which is exactly how she found herself in the American south.

“You’ll get used to it. Larger universities just use those intro classes to weed out the weak. And we all know Ersos are intellectuals.” Now it was Jyn’s turn to laugh.

Her father was a well known scientist that worked for a sub-contractor for NASA. It wasn’t uncommon for him to travel for work, often going back to Europe or to the west coast. Jyn, while not bad at science, definitely had not experienced the same calling as her father. Last week she had blown up a beaker in her chem lab. Needless to say, she was heavily considering not declaring a science major.

The bench she had chosen to sit at was one of her favorite on campus. It was right between the chemistry building and her dorm, only slightly out of the way. The bench was situated right beside the Turtle Pond, a small pond that was hidden behind the math building--in a grove of trees. It was always quiet and, even when people did venture to this part of campus, they were always the quiet type like her.

“I’m going back to Denmark next week; your mother is coming along with me.” Jyn let herself stretch out across the bench, when she realized that no one would be joining her out here. It was a Wednesday afternoon and most students were either in class or eating lunch at the dining halls. She prefered to spend her free hour between Calculus and Spanish relaxing outdoors in the heat, before the eventual winter weather hit.

“That will be nice. Are you going to see grandma?”

Not too far away from her, she watched as a boy walked up to the turtle pond. From a distance he looked vaguely familiar, but she had met and seen a lot of boys in her two weeks on campus since moving in--a byproduct of joining one of the larger sororities. He sat his bookbag on the ground and took a seat beside it, staring down at the fish and small turtles occupying the pond.

“Yes, she’s very excited. Wishes you could come too.” Her father paused for a second, before telling her that his lunch break was ending. “Let me know if the lice spray does not work. It’s your mother’s favorite brand.”

Jyn let out a loud laugh at his sign off, before telling him she loved him. Her father insisted on holding their daily conversations in Danish, mostly because he wanted her to keep up her speaking skills, but also because he swore his co-workers were the nosiest people he had ever met. Some days, just to mess with them, he always made sure to add in weird sentences to their conversations, randomly speaking them in English, just to mess with the eavesdroppers. Today’s had been his funniest in a while. 

Across the way from her, she noticed the boy had pulled out what looked to be a book.

Checking the time on her phone, she placed her legs back on the ground when she saw that it was fifteen minutes until her class was supposed to start. Her spanish class was in a building only ten minutes away by walking, but her Professora hated it when students were late. Slowly, she gathered her bookbag and stood from the bench, stretching as she did so. Her eyes drifted to the boy sitting quietly at the pond.

She still wasn’t sure why he seemed familiar to her, but she needed to walk by him in order to head towards the building her class was in. Otherwise, she would add an extra three minutes to her trek, something she definitely was not doing. As she got closer and closer to him, she realized it was the boy from the bus a few days ago--the one that had thanked her in Spanish.

His choice of clothing was interesting--jeans and a plain navy sweater, layered over a gray colored shirt--the complete opposite of her oversized shirt and nike short combo. A part of her wondered how he wasn’t drenched in sweat; this part of the country wasn’t known for it’s cool August days. He looked completely unbothered sitting there, flipping the pages of whatever book it was he was reading. 

Just as she was walking past him, she accidentally stepped on a tree branch and snapped it--startling the boy. He jumped slightly, but apparently it was just enough for him to lose his grip on the book he was holding. She watched in mild horror as the book fell from his hands into the pond. Her hands flew to to her face, half to hide her gasp, half to hide her laugh, as she watched him lurch forward for the book.

The boy awkwardly fell onto his stomach from his seated position and he splashed water everywhere, no doubt angering the peaceful animals in the pond, as he dove his arms in the water to retrieve the book. It took him a second of floundering around, but he eventually pulled the completely ruined book from the water. Along with it, he pulled out his completely drenched arms. The water dripped down across his entire body, nearly soaking all of his clothing.

“Maldita sea!”

She bit her lip and glanced at the watch on her wrist. She now only had 11 minutes to make it to class on time. But, looking at the soaked boy and the expression on his face, she felt really guilty about startling him. She took a step forward and he, seemingly for the first time, noticed her presence there. She offered him a slight smile and he looked from her down to his drenched clothing.

“Uhm, sorry about the scare. I didn’t think it would…” She trailed off, motioning towards his wet clothes and the ruined book, which she could now see was a copy of Wuthering Heights. “I can buy you a new copy of that book, too.”

“Uhm, no. No it is okay. I,” he paused, seeming completely flustered. His voice was coated in a thick accent and she noticed, for the first time, he was rather cute--for being soaked in pond water, that is. “I did not even understand what it was saying anyways.”

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, before his face broke out into a grin. She returned the grin and laughed slightly at the situation. His smile faltered a bit at the sound and she pursed her lips, trying to stop herself, but it was rather difficult given the situation. She held her hand out to him and he stared at it for a moment, before sliding his hand into hers.

He slowly stood up and, standing face to face with him, she realized just how much taller than her he was. He offered her another shy smile, one where only one lip lifted. They stood in another round of silence, before he glanced down at his clothes, pulling at his soaked sweater.

“Ah, I guess I will not be attending my english class today. Too bad, It is the one I need most help in.” 

Jyn couldn’t help but wonder where he was from. He obviously spoke spanish, but so did about half the world. He didn’t look European--Jyn knew what those types looked like. And she had never ventured to any other american countries. His foreign status at least explained his lack of cargo shorts and camo in his attire. Those were two trends she would never get used to, no matter how long she lived in the US.

“I really am sorry about frightening you.” He shrugged it off, leaning down to pick up his--luckily--dry bag. His shoes even looked wet. “Let me make it up to you somehow.”

He strapped his bag on his back and had begun to wring out his shirt. At her proposition, he looked back up at her. The intensity of his gaze was a bit startling. Her throat felt dry.

“I think I would like to know your name.”

The words slid off his tongue and, even though he had just joked about needing help with his english, she had to admit that he had been damn smooth delivering that line. He raked a hand through his hair, pushing the bit that had fallen into his eyes back and Jyn suddenly felt like she had been wasting a lot of time staring at the American boys in her classes.

She realized she had been staring and gave him a small grin.

“Jyn. Jyn Erso.”

The wide grin that broke out across his face in return caused her pulse to skip slightly. She definitely would not be making it to class on time.

 


	2. September

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol I felt that dedicating a chapter to the fifth floor of our library here is only fitting bc I was tortured so much by that place.

_ Can we plz go snellibrate? Ya girl wants some cereal & pizza asap _

Jyn cast a wayward glance down at her phone screen, which for the past five minutes had not stopped lighting up with texts from Leia. She knew her roommate meant well  _ (it was only the second month of the semester, how was Jyn already this bogged down in work?) _ but she really couldn't afford another poor grade on a calculus quiz. Jyn really should have listened to her advisor when they said not to jump over precalc. Or to her father--but she wouldn’t tell him that.

It was only 11 pm, a mere two hours into her planned ‘cram-time’, and she was already having issues staying focused. The constant vibrations from her phone definitely weren’t helping.

Her night had begun in her dorm room; she and Leia had lucked out by getting a lower five dorm--which had larger rooms than most freshman dorms, but that added space didn't mean much when your roommate had a Gossip Girl addiction. She could only handle so much Chuck and Blair drama. That show buzzing in the background of her life would be the cause of her early hair loss. 

Her next stop on the grand tour to find study space had been to the student learning center. Of course, as she had come to realize was always the case, every study cubicle was occupied by the time she arrived. One boy had even brought a sleeping bag along with him. 

And those chain of events led her to her current location: the fifth floor of the library. 

She hadn't actually spent too much time in the library yet. Her only true visit inside had been with her English class on a required visit. But she had found a table that overlooked Sanford and it was much more quiet than she could have dreamed for at the MLC. She hadn’t even bothered to look at which books she was surrounded by; when she got in the elevator she just made sure to select that floor that didn’t serve any secondary purposes which would mean people lingering about.

_ Luke is coming to get pizza w me bc he's a good brother.  _

Jyn had to resist the urge to pick up her phone and reply. Replying meant getting sucked into the conversation and losing valuable time. After all, she wasn't planning an all-mightier per-say. She just simply wanted to study until her eyeballs fell out and her mind constantly played calculus formulas on repeat.

_ Ur a bad sister  _

She rolled her eyes at that one, took the offensive object, and slid it into her bag: out of sight, out of mind. Now nothing separated her from the immeasurably small print of her calculus textbook. Her mind had barely focused on the concept on the page in front of her before she heard it. 

A loud crash coming from the stacks. 

The noise started her so badly that she nearly fell out of her chair in surprise. In all honesty she thought she had been alone on the floor. The library was open a good three more hours, but it had been a lot more deserted than she had anticipated--most students were on the 4th floor, in the study lounge anyways. The noise most likely came from a worker who dropped books they were reshelving. 

_ (At least that’s what she told herself because she had already heard one too many ghost stories about the buildings on campus.) _

She was planning on ignoring the noise until she heard the faint mumbling coming from the stacks. Apparently, whoever made the mess also thought they were alone. 

Her foot began to bounce as she glanced around herself. All she could see were stacks and stacks of books. If a ghost came for her, however unlikely, she would be a sitting duck. Deciding that it was useless to try and re-concentrate with the new distraction, Jyn stood from her seat and made way towards where the noise had come from. Maybe walking a bit would loosen up her mind? Anything was possible. 

Plus she wanted to be able to tell her sorority sisters that she definitely survived a ghost attack in the main library.

It only took her a few seconds to find the source of the noise. Sadly, it was not a ghost--honestly she was both relieved and disappointed.  _ (She had already heard about the ghost in the German building. Hell nah) _ . A few stacks away from her, she spotted a man leaning over a pile of books that had fallen onto the ground--no shelving cart in sight. So… her ghost was just an unlucky dude who made the librarians night a whole lot worse. Great.

"Ay, dios mio."

The sound of his voice floated to her ear as she slowly approached the man gathering the fallen books into his arms. Gently, as to not startle him and make him drop the books one more, she called out to him. 

"Do you need help?"

The man, the one from the turtle pond she remembered, looked up from the mess he had made and straight into her eyes. She shivered. He grinned sheepishly. 

"Yes, I do believe so." 

Jyn leant down and began putting the books into piles, organizing the chaos that he had somehow created. They remained quiet for a moment, working in tandem on the mess. After a long pause, Jyn glanced at the boy--who she realized was definitely more of a man--and cleared her throat.

“When I heard the noise you made, I definitely thought there was a ghost haunting the stacks. You gave me a heart attack.”

His hands paused over the books and for a brief second, Jyn feared she had said the wrong thing. He glanced up at her with a confused look in his eye. He eyed her up and down. She noticed he was gripping a copy of a biography on Queen Elizabeth I in his hand.

“I do not understand. Are you okay? Should I call police?”

For a second she just stared at him, not really understanding why he was asking her that. Then she realized--he didn’t get her figurative saying. She tried not too--after all, she knew what it was like to mess up when speaking a language that isn’t your mother tongue--but she laughed as soon as she realized where his confusion came from.

He ran a hand through his hair and released his grip on the book.

“No, uhm, it’s a saying.” She paused, trying to collect her words. “It’s like saying you gave me a fright.  _ Me asustaste _ .”

His eyes lit up a bit at her use of his language and she earned a laugh from him. He gathered a pile of books in his hands and stood from the ground, looking down at her as she did the same. Together, they began to walk to the end of the rows of books, towards where she assumed the re-shelving cart was. ( _ She made note of how he didn’t attempt to reshelve the ten or so books himself. Considerate). _

“¿Tu hablas español?” 

The sound of his native language rolling off his tongue almost made her choke. It sounded that good. She was right when she met him by the turtle pond--she definitely was wasting her time with these american frat daddies. 

“I wish, no. I took spanish in high school for a bit and am taking it now, but I dare say I’m piss poor at it.” She grinned up at him as she used her english colloquialism. He seemed to understand that one--or at least played it off that he did--and nodded.

“But you do speak another language.” He didn’t phrase it as a question.

Jyn dropped the books she was holding down onto the reshelve cart and watched as he did the same. He wasn’t a super bulky man by any means, but she could see his muscles flex through the plain sweatshirt that he wore. When she glanced back up to his face, he was already staring down at her.

“Yes, Danish.” She paused for a moment, thinking back to their first encounter on the bus. She had been on the phone with her father then. How did he remember something like that? That was weeks ago and she was just a random girl  _ who had made him drop a book into a pond _ . “My father is from Denmark.”

“But you are from England?” 

They were standing maybe a foot from each other, both hovering around the cart. Jyn thought back to her phone and bag sitting alone by her window seat. But she also thought about the man with the accent standing  _ right in front of her _ . She could spare a bit longer of a break.

“Yes, my mum is English. We moved to the States a few years back.” Another pregnant pause. “What about you?”

Another hand run through his hair. “I am from Mexico. I came here to learn about your history and speak your language poorly.”

Her laugh echoed throughout the empty floor, causing his grin to grow slightly. He suddenly held his hand out to her and she stared at it for a moment.

“I am Cassian, by the way. I learned your name but forgot to give you mine.”

Gently, she placed her hand in his and shook it. They stayed paused in that moment for a minute, both silently considering how this was their third meeting and  _ why wasn’t she asking him for coffee or something? Damn, jyn _ . However, the moment was shattered when someone cleared their throat behind them.

Jyn quickly released his hand and glanced over his shoulder at the short girl looking at them expectantly. The lanyard around her neck was all Jyn needed to see to know she was an employee.

“Y’all are blocking the cart.” Honestly Jyn wasn’t surprised.

Awkwardly, she and Cassian both backed away from the cart, making way for the girl to grab it. Jyn saw the distasteful glance the girl threw at the cart when she saw the number of books piled onto it and had to stifle her laugh as the employee pushed it away. Silence fell between them again.

“I should probably head out,” she finally said, breaking the silence. There was no way she was doing any more studying tonight. Honestly all she needed in calc was a 70:  _ C’s get degrees _ . 

Cassian nodded and glanced down at a watch she hadn’t noticed he was wearing. “Yes, I must catch my bus soon.” 

She hadn’t noticed, but they had both made way to the table she had been seated at. Cassian stood behind her quietly as she quickly packed her things away--making sure to pull her phone from her bag and place it into her pocket. Together they walked to the elevator. As they waited silently for the elevator to arrive, Jyn snuck a glance at her phone screen.

_ Yo they got homefries up in this bitch. Ur missing out girl. _

As she stood in the elevator beside Cassian, Jyn highly doubted it. She didn’t realize until they were saying goodbye on the front steps that he hadn’t checked out whichever book he had been looking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To clarify:  
> Snellibrate: Eating at Snelling Dining Commons late at night (it's open 24/7)


End file.
